Sunday Morning Quarterback of Sunday Morning Quarterback fame is famous for several things: Sunday Morning Quarterback, jealousy inspiring prose, fakedness so pleasurable it makes you forget that the “f” is in fact not an “n” preceding the words “involving Jessica Alba“… and, of course, his ridiculous, awe-ful, humbling Old Testament Jehovah-style obliteration of all concerns for logistics or commensurate return on effort otherwise known as SMQ’s breakdown of all 119 Division I-A teams. I’m not joking about the Jehovah thing: at one point last season Louisiana-Monroe got turned into a pillar of salt for daring to glance back at Murfreesboro. Am I saying SMQ is God? No. Not the Judeo-Christian big-G, anyway. But I wouldn’t be surprised to find that SMQ’s mama was once finnegaled into dinner and dancing by Zeus of the Thunders.

In other words: SMQ’s kind of a big deal.

His most recent pre-season assessment centers on UCLA. I recently wrote a long-ish diatribe on the Bruins involving Cthulhu, Hillary Clinton (not the same as Cthulhu no matter what Tucker Carlson is advocating), Kodos and Kang, cheese eating surrender monkeys and the muppet alert system. SMQ decided to use, like, numbers and analysis. I clearly also went the route of logic.

We both were bearish on the Bruins. (Pun! I am so smart, I am so smart, s-m-r-t.) Where SMQ uses numbers, season by season comparison and analysis, I use Rocky IV. If you’ve never seen Rocky IV, let me explain two things: feel free to go ahead and skip directly from Rocky to Rocky IV, ignoring II, III and then eventually V and VI; Ivan Drago.

“Please to be speakink rawr, comrade.”

That last item probably requires more explanation, so: Drago is the Soviet-bloc produced superman whose punching power, Achilles physique, psychotic singlemindedness (here not so much contrasting as simply complimenting Sylvester Stallone’s own like mindedness), vaguely steppes-ish Valkyrie bride and all around Communist infrastructure scream impossible, perhaps even suspiciously so, odds. At one point it is strongly implied that Drago trained for his bout with former champ Apollo Creed by invading Afghanistan and subduing the poppy warlords by flexing his glutes. He is bad ass, and this is confirmed when, after pugilating Creed into pre-fatal convulsions, he notes simply that “If he [Creed] dies, he dies,” only with much more Siege of Stalingrad stoicism and less existential ambiguity. Also, the Special Edition DVD contains his deleted “drug testing” scene in which the Russian boxer emits a stream of Stoli from his urinary tract, which is then mixed into a vodka tonic for the mayor of Moscow.

In other words, by all indications Drago is a force to be reckoned with.

UCLA, with 19 returning starters and a likely upgrade at quarterback with the un-injury of Ben Olson, also appears to be a force to be reckoned with.

Drago killed Apollo Creed, Rocky’s best friend and fiercest competitor. Think of Creed as Joe Frazier and Rocky as Ali, only increase the hate by several magnitudes, remove friendship and add in race baiting between two of the most fiercely black men of their generation, and also vomit on yourself over any comparison between Stallone and Ali. What it comes down to is if anyone gets to kill Creed/Frazier, it’s Rocky/Ali. We don’t do any of this death by government sponsored proxy shit in the US of A, Drago. If our friends need to die, we’re the ones to beat them to death. So toss in temerity into Soviet Russia’s laundry list of crimes and misdemeanors.

UCLA killed USC’s BCS title hopes. I’m not sure how the comparison is going to develop from here, except to say that if anyone gets to kill UCLA, it’s USC.

In the end, Drago is defeated and likely faces death/torture/material dispossession/stern frowning at the hands of his government.

In the end, UCLA will be defeated and likely faces a deep sigh of relief from anyone who believes in predictabiliy and the avoidance of Gozer, Keymasters, Gatekeepers and Stay-Puft Marshmallow Men.

I know there’s danger in mixing Ghostbusters and Rocky IV, and even more danger in comparing UCLA football to Ivan Drago and implying that USC is an underdog. Which USC is not. But if I didn’t do any of that it would mean that statistical analysis would be needed, and no one wants that. Anyway, to sum it up…

SMQ on UCLA: 7-6, overall meh-ness.

82 Sluggo Win on UCLA: defeat at the hands of anthropomorphic embodiment of all that is good in America, followed by utter ruination via crossed proton pack streams, or, as Vinz Clortho would’ve put it…

Traveler – he will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the rectification of the Vuldronaii, Traveler came as a large and moving Torb! Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the Meketrex supplicants, they chose a new form for him – that of a giant Sloar! Many Shubs and Zuuls and Bruins knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Sloar that day, I can tell you!